Locum IP Pharmacists – Experience Essential!

Many of us start working as pharmacists after graduating and completing the foundation year, as locum pharmacists. The degree and registration allow a newly qualified pharmacist to take on clinical and legal responsibility, working as a Responsible pharmacist from the day after graduation. Experience makes dealing with problems easier over time, but you don’t need lots of experience to work as a locum community pharmacist., it’s the qualification and registration with the GPhC that matters.

Many pharmacists think the same applies to PCN and GP Practice roles, but that’s not the case.  I interview a lot of pharmacists who have worked as locum community pharmacists, passed their IP qualification, and then think they could work as locum clinical and/or IP pharmacists.

High-Risk Option

This is a very high-risk option as the potential risks associated with working as a locum clinical pharmacist far outweigh those associated with working as a locum in a community pharmacy.

Medacy has a large and growing team of employed IP Pharmacists. We can normally cover sickness and holidays from within the employed team of pharmacists, but once in a while, we need to engage locum IP Pharmacists. This locum IP Pharmacist needs to be comfortable with both main clinical systems and happy to perform all the normal practice work tasks like meds reviews. processing acute requests for medications and processing clinical letters. It’s no good to me if they can only prescribe in hypertension or refer 75% of their workload to the GP for clarification or because they don’t feel confident enough to take clinical responsibility.

Call me!

So if you are a pharmacist who has just passed their IP registration but has no experience in GP Practice, my advice would be to take a permanent position to build up your confidence and scope of practice. Once you are a confident prescriber across all clinical areas, happy to work across clinical systems and experienced in all the long-term conditions, then work as a locum IP Pharmacist and give me a call.